Are You Busy?

I would say that if you ask most Mom's this question, they are going to give you the same answer:
"Are you busy?"
I think I just heard all of you Mom's laughing out loud and saying, "Of course, I'm busy. I'm a Mom and I have a family to take care of, a home to take care of, (some of us have jobs outside of the home that also has to be squeezed into our day.) Besides every other appointment on the calendar."
I hope I've at least given you a good laugh. ;-)

One of my favorite Bible verses is, "Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men." Col 3:23. Dictionary.com defines heartily as, "thoroughly or vigorously". Am I being thorough in everything I do? Am I always working vigorously on my tasks?

I know I often feel like I am speeding through the day, like there is so much to be accomplished and I have another task, appointment, etc to get to that I don't give myself thoroughly to the work needed to be done at that moment. Tardiness is one of my pet peeves so in my mind I often say that I'll finish this task or that task later because I don't want to be late for the next appointment on my calendar for that day. But in reality what I am doing is creating more chaos to be dealt with later. Do you do that? If so, then we need to ask ourselves:
Are we just busy OR are we accomplishing something? Are we working thoroughly and vigorously at the tasks at hand?

As I type this I sound so preachy, but this is my pep talk to myself as I realize that my life is too "busy" with being busy and less busy with working vigorously in the moment and accomplishing the things that need to be done. 2 Thess 3:11 says, "We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies." I don't want to be idle nor disruptive and definitely not a busybody. I don't even want to just be busy. I want to be busy with a purpose to accomplish something!  I want to be diligent! Dictionary.com refers to diligence as "implying active or earnest effort to accomplish something."

When I get up with the boys, I always prepare their breakfasts. I get Big D settled at the table, we bless the food and then I prepare Little D's breakfast and then I make a quick breakfast for myself. If we have somewhere to be first thing in the morning, (here I go getting "busy") I tend to be pushing breakfast down as quickly as possible, encouraging Big D to eat fast so we can get ready to go. Now this is where I'm not being diligent. In an effort to be on time, I excuse myself from cleaning up the table and the mess from breakfast. Now I know this isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it's one of those little things that I feel like I'm slacking on. Really, does it take all that long to rinse off 3 plates and put them in the dishwasher? No! It's just me allowing me to be busy and not persistent. Then at the end of the day when all of these little things are left undone, I realize that the house ends up being rather messy because of my lack of diligence.


So here is my goal for tomorrow: be thorough, be diligent in each moment and don't just be too busy! 
I've designed this image to print to stick on the fridge in the morning. Feel free to right click on it, save and print it too!

Be encouraged to not just be busy, but in whatever you do, do it heartily (thoroughly and with vigor) as for the Lord! :-)